In today's working environments, information is one of the core assets for enterprises of all businesses. Especially for employees working in a globally integrated company, instant messaging is due to its real-time capability one of the most important tools to communicate and exchange information.
In the Patent Application Publication US 2008/0201434 A1 “CONTEXT-SENSITIVE SEARCHES AND FUNCTIONALITY FOR INSTANT MESSAGING APPLICATIONS” by Holmes et al. instant messaging applications are disclosed. The disclosed instant messaging applications comprise that in the context of an instant messaging application, a conversation is analyzed and contextually or textually relevant keywords and/or phrases are identified. These keywords or phrases are then highlighted in a visually-identifiable manner for selection by an individual participating in the conversation. Once selected by an individual, a user interface is presented and exposes the individual or individuals in the conversation to various contextually- or textually-relevant material or functionality that pertains to the selected word or phrase. An individual can also manually select a word or phrase to access the user interface that exposes contextually or textually-relevant material or functionality. At least some of this relevant material or functionality is presented to the user in the context of the instant messaging application and in a manner in which it can be consumed by the individual within the instant messaging application itself.
Today's instant messaging systems are easy and comfortable to use but are usually not integrated in the user's context of work. This causes several problems since information from various back-end systems is not available on the fly but must be gathered manually which is cumbersome, time consuming and error prone. The instant messaging client is only a starting point of work. Work items and tasks that are determined during instant messaging communication have to be handled in separate infrastructure although the instant messaging client could be a perfect hub of information and action as it is in the context of the current discussion and “knows” everything about the discussion history, the discussion topic and the people involved. Information about the users' scope of work, organizational structures, the geographic location and time zones the different users reside in are not regarded, this could lead to misunderstandings, inefficient communication and discussions at cross-purposes.